


Raw

by FenVallas



Series: Revasel Lavellan [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Mentions of Male Lavellan, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3876145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/FenVallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revasel doesn't know how she ever thought he was homely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raw

In all her life she had never been so aware of a man.

Which was funny, truly funny, because three weeks ago she had been convinced he was the ugliest man she had ever seen.

No, maybe that was an exaggeration. She had thought he was homely, at the most, nondescript, certainly, but this… This was the opposite of either of those things.

Solas was handsome.

He was handsome and interesting, and how he ever managed to disappear in a crowd as he had a tendency to, she had absolutely no idea. His face was dynamic, he was passionate, and his eyes always shone with something so clever that it could be unsettling in the right circumstances. But she knew him, she thought, beyond the polite smiles and nods of his head, she knew that he was a man of sharp edges, like the angles of his face, and softer affections, like the curve of his lips when he smiled at her, when he said “ _lethallin_ ”.

He made her feel.

Just feel, and the thought of him alone, the sight of him, was enough for her to remember his strong hands, his long fingers, his magic flowing into and through her as it knit together the parts of her that were broken.

“You are not a child, Revasel,” she told herself. “You are not a little girl. This is nothing. It means nothing.”

And yet…

“Inquisitor?”

Revasel almost jumped out of her skin, not expecting to be interrupted in the small underground library, with its old books, falling apart at the bindings. Spinning around, she backed up against a wall and felt her ears burning, finding that never before had she been so grateful for her dark skin, which might help hide the blush, if only slightly.

It was Solas, though she had known that from the moment he had spoken. How could someone not recognize him from his voice alone? There wasn’t another voice like it in the world, she thought, almost lyrical, sometimes harsh, but always pleasant to listen to.

Cursing herself again, Rey attempted to school her reaction – attraction combined with her respect for him was making this more difficult than she would like – but was failing miserably, especially because he walked closer. Still, she knew from experience (limited experience) that you were never quite as obvious with your affections as you thought you were, so she leaned against the bookshelf and smiled.

Solas smiled back and she fought the feelings that coiled uncomfortably in her stomach. “I had no idea you were down here. My apologies if I am interrupting something,” he said, but neither of them moved, and his smile didn’t falter.

“No, I was just exploring. It’s… Skyhold is massive. I’m still at a loss as to how you found it in the first place.” Conversation made it easier, Rey thought as she spoke, there was less time to think about the shape of his lips and the intensity of his gaze.

“I looked,” he answered, and then walked farther into the room, giving her a curious glance as he walked to the desk and looked at through the papers on it. “It’s a miracle these are not more decayed. Perhaps the magic of this place has protected them.”

Rey followed him, her footsteps nearly as loud as her heartbeats, recalling hot summer nights with one of the few boys she’d ever been with, the Storyteller’s son, now a Halla herder. He had been a cute boy with sandy hair, a shy smile, and uncertain hands that grew bolder as the night went on. She recalled fondly how they had laughed together, sat together, been together until Rey had taken up the mantle of First and thrown away physical pleasures.

What she had felt then had been a shy buzzing, a girlish joy in the excitement of stealing away to indulge in first love. This, she was rapidly realizing, was different.

“You always answer that way.” Rey leaned against the desk and looked at the papers, her own eyes scanning them to try to make sense of the words on the page, but the script was illegible namely because it was so sloppy. “It’s like you’re keeping secrets.”

His eyes slid over her, a curious expression on his face for all but a second before he shook his head and spoke. “No, not secrets. I simply do not know how to explain… How does one explain the things he sees in the Fade? It’s abstract, and difficult to put to words.”

Rey’s anxiety spiked and she worried she had offended him, but his blue eyes were unwavering as they ever were. He was answering a question, as he answered all her questions, with patience and perhaps a bit of eagerness to be heard.

She felt stupid for having worried in the first place.

Hoisting herself up onto the edge of the desk, Rey looked at the bookshelves opposite them instead of at his face, listening to the distant sounds of floorboards creaking above and cooks shouting from the nearby kitchen. For a moment they simply sat that way, Solas ruffling through the papers on the desk, Rey attempting to find the words to speak when they were chased away by her nerves.

“You know, growing up, I was never sure whether I was supposed to be proud of being a mage or not,” Rey said at last, drawing a leg up to her chest and settling her chin upon her knee. “Deshanna talked constantly about what a responsibility and honor it was to be a mage. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in a world where magic doesn’t make you different.”

“Magic was natural to The People.” Rey listened to him place the papers on the desk and walk to stand beside her, and she turned her head to look at him only to find him staring back at her already. “There is no shame in being what you are, Lavellan. There never has been.”

His use of even her clan name was reason for surprise, because it seemed no matter how many times she’d asked for him to call her Revasel he refused and continued to address her as “Herald” or “Inquisitor”. The strangeness of it almost distracted her from his words, for a half a second, but she focused on them and bit her lip, thinking about what he had to say seriously.

No shame?

“Do you think I’m ashamed of it?” Her voice was soft, softer than she thought she could make it. “It’s more… It’s more like a burden.”

Grief, for she could think of no other word to describe it, wavered on his features for a half a second before he hid it away behind furrowed brows and a sharp frown of disapproval. “Magic is a gift, _lethallin_ , a way of seeing the world, of being connected to something that other people have no means of experiencing. It is the word around you that makes it seem a heavy weight, but magic itself should be liberating.”

As if to illustrate a point, Solas held out his palm, conjuring within it a small, blue flame. It did not waver, casting the room in its blue glow before he extinguished it but a second later, his eyes tracing the lines of her _vallaslin_. “Magic is memory, emotion, dreams, and imagination. It is the very heart of what people are, and that is why its loss is so very sad. I cannot imagine being tethered to this world, blind to the energies of the Fade.”

His face softened and he smiled at her, his features lighting up with a kindness she had never seen him express before. If Solas frowning was handsome, Solas up close --so close that she could see the faint freckles across his nose and the laugh lines that seemed to make his eyes shine-- was striking in a way that defied description.

She couldn’t help but stare, memorizing every feature of his face. The curve of his lips into that gentle smile, the way his eyes looked at her, more attentive to her than anyone’s eyes had ever been. She almost started when his hand fell upon her shoulder, recalling the hug in Haven, the way his arms had wrapped around her without hesitation in his attempt to comfort her, and felt the blush flare on her skin once more. 

“You are fine the way you are,” he said at last. “There is nothing to be burdened by when your mind has been opened to a world beyond the reckoning of most others. Magic is a part of you, as much as your heart or your smile, and I would not see you burdened because the shemlen think magic marks someone as lesser.”

Rey felt Solas search her face for a moment, his hand still resting upon her shoulder, warm and heavy. There was something in his words she couldn’t quite reconcile with her image of him, she realized, even beyond the exquisite tenderness and regard he had given her. Beyond the danger she had felt when they’d first met, beyond the steady friendship they’d built that had culminated in “ _lethallin_ ”, there was something unknown, something **_raw_** in his expression that she had seen only glimpses of before.

_I imagine the sight would be… fascinating._

As the memory of his voice rang out in her mind, Solas withdrew his hand, and the loss of contact felt like punctuation to her thoughts. Suddenly, heat crept anew across her features, aware even more of every bit of him, from the expanse of his shoulders to the long fingers that now flexed restlessly at his side. She didn’t fail to notice that the tips of his own ears were now quite red, as well, and that he now refused to meet her gaze when before it had been unwavering.

Was he…?

Could he possibly be…?

“Thank you,” she choked out after a moment. “I think that I needed to hear that. The Dalish… We don’t really…”

“I know,” he said, not allowing her to finish her explanation. “It is fine… I… You are welcome. Inquisitor.”

He swallowed, and this close she could see him do so, but she didn’t have a chance to respond further because Solas excused himself and moved from the room with a speed that almost made her dizzy.

She watched the door slam shut behind him, starting at the space where he had been for a moment longer, glad for the blessedly cool air of the basement on her face. Leaning back, she laid on the desk and stared at the ceiling, thinking of that raw thing in his expression and the words that made her stomach twist and drop in retrospect.

Mahvir would have called her an idiot for not noticing, but he’d always been better at detecting that sort of thing than she had.

Rey pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a desperate giggle of relief that threatened to push its way out of her mouth and closed her eyes. In this moment, her vows as First didn’t matter to her, nothing mattered to her except the burning realization that her attraction wasn’t one-sided at all.

For once, her duty meant less than her happiness as she allowed herself to indulge a few harmless fantasies that would surely never come to fruition.


End file.
